The Air Jordan 12 'Dark Concord' leaves most of the shoe black and lets a few purple details carry the color story. It is a quieter interpretation of the model, but the curved overlays and rising stitch lines remain easy to recognize.
Style CT8013-005 arrived in 2020 as a new colorway of an older design. It is not an original playing-era release, nor is it an Air Jordan 11 simply because the name Concord appears in its title. The useful story is how a small amount of color changes the appearance of the AJ12 without changing its fundamental layout.
A 1996 foundation beneath a 2020 palette
Nike's archive dates the Air Jordan 12 to 1996 and credits Tinker Hatfield. It connects the design to the Japanese flag and places the model within Jordan's 1996-97 season. Those facts concern the original silhouette. The Dark Concord pair uses that established form much later, allowing its historical connection to come through the construction rather than an exact reproduction of an original color scheme.
The Loryxen image makes the structure particularly clear because the upper is mostly one color. Stitch lines fan upward from the lower side toward the collar, while a textured overlay wraps around the toe and continues along the foot. The change in surface texture creates separation even where the colors match. A narrow purple accent sits near the middle, with additional purple visible at the upper eyelets.
This is an effective way to study the AJ12's shape. A high-contrast pair can make the color boundary the first thing you notice. Here, the boundary is still present, but light and texture describe it instead. The result is not minimal in construction; it is minimal in color distribution. That distinction helps explain why a predominantly black sneaker can still have a strong and complex side profile.
Where the Concord accents do their work
Hypebeast's October 2020 report, illustrated with Nike imagery, describes metallic purple on the midfoot details and upper eyestays, with another purple treatment at the heel tab. It also records contrasting white branding. Its coverage places the shoe within Jordan Brand's Holiday 2020 retro collection. These are more useful identifiers than loosely describing the release as an all-black Jordan, which would overlook the details that distinguish it.
The purple sections are small, but their placement gives them influence. At the eyelets, they draw attention upward toward the ankle. Along the side, the brighter strip interrupts a large dark area just above the sole. The two locations stop the shoe from reading as a single heavy block. In the product photograph, the accents appear concentrated rather than scattered across every available surface.
Concord is familiar within Jordan naming, but a familiar color word does not establish that one model is a direct tribute to another. There is no need to describe this AJ12 as a literal remake of the AJ11 Concord. Its layout is its own, and the purple appears in different proportions. Our interpretation is that the color acts as punctuation: the black establishes the sentence, and the small highlights determine where the eye pauses.
For technical background, Nike's AJ12 product material identifies the original model as the first in the signature line to introduce Zoom Air cushioning. Contemporary Dark Concord coverage also records Zoom Air in this release. That establishes the cushioning lineage without claiming a specific present-day feel. An archival specification and the condition of an individual pair are different kinds of information.
Reading the release record without mixing versions
Hypebeast recorded an October 23, 2020 release for the adult and grade-school editions, while Sneaker News' release archive gives the same date for CT8013-005. The Loryxen listing discussed here is the adult style code. The existence of a kids' edition does not make its size range or original price interchangeable with this one.
Material wording in secondary listings is not completely consistent: some describe smooth leather, while others use suede terminology. Rather than turning that disagreement into a definitive claim about every panel, this overview concentrates on the verified black-and-purple arrangement and the texture visible in the supplied photograph. Anyone for whom material finish is decisive should inspect the listing's additional views or request a close-up of the actual pair.
The Dark Concord remains interesting precisely because it does not need an elaborate invented story. It shows how a familiar retro can shift mood through careful emphasis. The geometry stays visible, the color remains concentrated and the overall silhouette feels coherent from toe to heel. For readers comparing AJ12 releases, it is a useful counterpoint to stronger two-tone treatments rather than a replacement for them.
Release details at a glance
- Model: Air Jordan 12 Retro
- Style code: CT8013-005
- Colorway: Black / Dark Concord
- Archived release: October 23, 2020
- Original model: 1996, Tinker Hatfield
- Cushioning lineage: Zoom Air
Visit the linked Loryxen product for the available size selection and current photographs. This article separates historical release information from the condition and price of the present listing.
Research note: Historical facts were checked against the sources below. Visual observations refer to the linked product image. Archive disagreements are identified in the article; current price, condition and availability belong to the product listing. Sources: Nike: Air Jordan 12 archive; Nike Brazil: Air Jordan 12 cushioning heritage; Hypebeast: October 2020 Dark Concord report; Sneaker News: Dark Concord release archive.
